Keith Battle - God of the Dark

My subject today is the God of the dark, the God of the dog. Do me a favor and help me preach this. I want you to elbow a couple of people around you and say, «He’s the God of the dog! He’s the God of the dark! He’s the God of God! Thank God, He’s the God of God!» He’s not just the God of the light; He’s the God of the dark. He’s not just the God of victory; He’s the God of the dark. I’m grateful that He’s the God of the dark. He’s not just a God in good times; He’s the God in the cancer ward. He’s the God in the ICU when life is hanging by a thread. He’s the God of the morgue when you have to stand over the remains of someone you love. He’s the God in a prison cell. Somebody help me preach it here! Has anybody ever met Him in the dark? He’s the God of the dark! He’s not just there in good times; He’s the God when you’re crying yourself to sleep at night. He’s the God when your children go astray and you don’t know if they’re gonna make it. He’s the God of the dog. He’s the God when you’ve been divorced and betrayed by someone you love. Is there anybody here that knows that He’s the God of the dark? He’s not just the God of the light; He’s the God of the darkness. By nature, darkness is an unnerving and frightening thing. Many of us have learned to fear darkness even from the time we were children. In fact, most children now have some type of nightlight or something in their room to comfort them and to assuage their fear of darkness. Many of them need televisions playing or some other distraction to help them feel secure. I know some adults still sleep with the TV on; they just never got past it, huh? Yeah, so it is. Darkness, by definition, is a difficult space to be in because our visibility is limited. It’s hard to see in the dark, even when you’re in a familiar place. You still don’t move at the same pace when you’re in the dark. Many toes have been stubbed in the dark, and the dark is a place where you don’t move progressively; you move cautiously. It is a space where you move with safety and survival in mind because you’re just trying to make it safely through the night. Even though most of us have lived long enough to know that the night won’t last, sometimes you’re in the dark so long that the morning cannot come fast enough. Darkness, by definition, is the absence of light, but it has an ominous feel to it as well. If it ever gets dark in the middle of the day, it tells you a storm is coming. Everything about darkness tends to be negative. It is darkness when somebody is defined as a dark person. I don’t mean complexion; I’m just saying you can be light-skinned, and someone can say, «She’s dark.» She’s a dark person. Do you understand what I’m saying? Are you tracking with me? If you’re tracking with me, put it in the chat and say, «I’m tracking.» That’s a phrase I got from my brother called tracking; it means I’m on the same page with you. I follow you; I’m with you. That’s what I mean when I say that you can be a light-skinned person, but it doesn’t matter about your complexion. When somebody says, «You know he’s dark,» that’s talking about how murky your personality and character are, which can be scary. Whenever we are in the dark, it is a place where God wants us to know, «That’s where I do my best work.» Yeah, because not only did I make the light, I made the darkness. In fact, in Psalm 139, verses 11 and 12, God says, «The darkness and the light are the same to me; I made them both.» The darkness and the light are the same to me; I make no distinction between darkness and light. God says, «I’m not intimidated by the darkness. I’m not paranoid in the dark. I see well in the dark. I’ve got infrared; I can see everything in the dark as if it’s in the light. The dark and the light are the same to me.» That’s why not only will I meet you and be with you in the dark, but I’m going to work in the dark and I have some treasure for you in the dark. Somebody say, «Thank you, Lord, for the treasure!» All the hell I’m going through right now, all the difficulty I’m dealing with, all the sleep I’m losing, all the stress I’m feeling—thank you that on the other side of this, there’s treasure in this darkness! Somebody say, «Don’t miss the treasure! Don’t miss the treasure! After all you’ve been through, the last thing you want to do is miss the treasure!» It is difficult to truly do justice to how dark this passage really is. You can’t get a feel for how dark this passage is by reading it on the surface. You have to go beneath the surface and understand what’s going on historically. First of all, when we look at this passage in Isaiah chapter 45, we are peeking into a time in history where they had no electricity. It is easier for us to appreciate light more, to understand and value the benefits of light more because we are the…